Before my daily cigarette
Lied to the bread seller
Bruised my left pinky
Washed away pipe dreams
Argued for risotto & onions
to fill up our fridge
Said the words leave you
Wondered wilfully about
farming again, yellow
kale flowers between
fingertips. Itched for œuillets
Finished a book
Waited for the sun
to burn through pale fabric
Waited for my French
to be corrected, wanted to –
but never did – speak English
except when I was tired
or too sad to care, or
Left a large pile of dishes
tilting on the sink's edge,
stained with fresh tomatoes
and their slippery green seeds.
Ella Bartlett is a graduate student in literature at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. Her work has appeared in decomP magazine, JetFuel Review, and in zines such as Unearth and Crossroads. You can follow her here: @EllatheRewriter.
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